Volvo Construction Equipment opens excavator factory in Russia

Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) has underlined its commitment to the Russian construction equipment market following the inauguration of a new 20,660 m2 excavator factory in Kaluga, Russia. The 350 million SEK facility was officially opened on May 14th in front of the Governor of the Kaluga Region along with over 500 guests and media representatives. The factory has been developed using technologies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions and is the company’s first in Russia, its seventh producing excavators and becomes Volvo CE’s 16th manufacturing facility worldwide.

As the second biggest market in Europe, Russia is one of the key regions for Volvo CE when it comes to long-term business development. With the opening of the new facility, Volvo CE hopes to take advantage of the burgeoning market for high quality construction machinery — in 2012, total imports into the Russian construction equipment market grew by 21% compared to the previous year.

“The Russian construction equipment market presents an attractive and growing opportunity for Volvo CE to provide customers with high quality products,” said company president Pat Olney at the inauguration ceremony. “With this new facility we will be able to provide machines tailored to the needs of the marketplace and deliver them to the customer specifications in a much shorter lead time.”

Closer to the customerThe new plant will create up to 300 new jobs in the area, and produce Volvo’s heavy-duty, high-performance excavators spanning the 20 to 50 tonne weight classes. The first models to roll off the new production lines will be the EC220, EC240, EC290, EC380 and EC480 D-Series excavators.

“The excavator models that most closely meet the needs of the Russian construction equipment market will be produced here in Kaluga,” said Andrey Komov, general manager of Volvo CE in Russia. “Producing excavators close to where our customers are located will enable us to supply them faster and accommodate their specific needs more readily.”

In a further effort to expand Volvo CE’s distribution footprint in the Russian market, the company’s authorized Russian dealer, Ferronordic Machines, also announced plans to expand its branch network by opening a major new facility in the Moscow region.